Daily Archives: August 1, 2017

LIGHTNING STRIKES AGAIN! Robotics team wins inaugural competition – Hometownlife.com

Posted: August 1, 2017 at 6:20 pm

When it rains it pours -- confetti, that is. The field is nearly hidden in a sea of confetti after Team 862 and its alliance members won the Festival of Champions.(Photo: Mike Saunders)

Not even the school year can contain Plymouth-Canton's Lightning Robotics Team 862.

Three months after capturing a world championship in St. Louis, Team 862 traveled to New Hampshire to team with its St. Louis alliance to win the inaugural FIRST Robotics Festival of Champions.

The competition the first of its kind in the birthplace of FIRST Robotics pitted the world championship teams from this spring's competitions in St. Louis and in Houston, Texas.

And the festival was won in epic style, with Team 862 and its St. Louis alliance Stryke Force from Kalamazoo, Cheesy Poofs from San Jose, Calif., and The Pascack PI-oneers from New Jersey scoring a record 588 points to win the best of five match, 3-2.

Team 862 faculty advisor Jay Obsniuk with the star of the show, Valkyrie.(Photo: Mike Saunders)

"It was the most amazing weekend," said Jay Obsniuk, the robotics honcho and faculty adviser to Team 862. "To meet (FIRST Robotics founder) Dean Kamenand all the leaders who attendedand then to go out and win was amazing."

Plymouth-Canton actually sat out the first two matches of the best-of-five series against the Houston champions teams from California, Arizona and Georgia then got back into the rotation for the third matches.

The St. Louis alliance came back to win the final three matches of the set to win the inaugural title.

"It was really exciting to come back and win three straight," Obsniuk said.

Vivian Clements, who starts her senior year at Canton High School next month, said the Festival of Champions is different from the world championships in St. Louis. For one thing, she said, you don't have to compete to find out whether you're chosen to be in an alliance.

Having a lot of those kinds of issues settled made for a quick, exciting competition, she said.

"In St. Louis, you're competing very hard for three days," said Clements, who served as a human player, collecting and feeding gears to the team's robot, Valkyrie. "The Festival of Champions is different. You already know who your alliance is, you just have to work hard and do your best. It was a whole big collaborative effort."

Theoretically, 2017 graduate Tyler Harris's robotics career should have been over. Harris, the team's pilot in the on-field airship,was part of the St. Louis alliance that captured Plymouth-Canton's first world titleand then put off starting at Kettering University in order to travel to New Hampshire.

Obviously, he's pretty happy he did.

"It's insane. ... When you go from just having an idea to having a full-fledged robot to working with your alliance ... it's mind-boggling," said Harris, due in a college classroom about 12 hours after returning from the trip. "I wouldn't trade that experience for anything."

bkadrich@hometownlife.com

Twitter: @bkadrich

An enthusiastic crowd of supporters welcomed Team 862 back from New Hampshire.(Photo: Brad Kadrich)

Pilot Tyler Harris, who is now off to Kettering to get his college career started, was all smiles after the Festival of Champions.(Photo: Mike Saunders)

Team 862 from Plymouth-Canton worked with its alliance to win the first Festival of Champions.(Photo: Mike Saunders)

Members of Team 862 show off the championship banner they brought home from the Festival of Champions in New Hampshire.(Photo: Brad Kadrich)

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DJI to Stream the RoboMaster 2017 Robotics Competition Exclusively on Twitch – The Drive

Posted: at 6:20 pm

DJI announced Monday that the RoboMaster 2017 finals which it sponsors will be streamed on the social video portal Twitch, exclusively. DJI is the world's leader in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for consumers and hobbyists, whether for simple cruising or for aerial photography. Twitch, of course, is the number one streaming platform for video games and other geek-related media.

"RoboMaster 2017 is an annual robotics competition for teams of aspiring engineers to design and build next-generation robots and to complete with teams from around the world," DJI wrote in a press release.

If this sparks your curiosity, head on over to Twitch's RoboMaster page and tune in. The finals are in full swing now in China's technology capital of Shenzhen and will come to a close on August 6. Don't worry, you can watch this without regional restriction, and aren't relegated to only Chinese commentary, as there's an English one available, too.

As somebody who watched American Gladiator and BattleBots as a child, this provides for a strong sense of nostalgia in that regard. The arena strongly reminds of those shows, but in this case, there's more of a focus on the actual engineering and strategy as opposed to theatrics and loud noises. How does the actual game in which these teams are competing in work? Well, it's fairly simple but warmly familiar to anyone who's ever played a video game or two.

"Each side has five types of robots: Hero, Infantry, Engineer, Drone, and Base. At the start of each seven-minute match, both teams set off from their starting corners, firing at each other on the obstacle-filled battleground. Every robot is equipped with sensors that convert hits into reduced Health Points (HP)," the press release said. "When a robot's HP drops to zero, it will be disabled, allowing the opposing team to further penetrate the opponents base. A team wins when it destroys the opponent's Base robot or whichever team has a higher Base HP at the end."

What does the winner get, you ask? Well, first prize is a nice 200,000 yuan, ($1,815.20). Second prize receives 100,000 yuan ($907.60), with third prize being 50,000 yuan ($453.80). Not too shabby.

Cinzia Palumbo, Senior Brand Manager at DJI, explained in the press release that the "competition started in China a few years ago and now attracts teams from the U.S., U.K., Germany, and the rest of Asia. By streaming RoboMaster 2017 on Twitch, it will enable us to reach a global audience and allow more people to realize how robotics could impact and change the world we live in."

Sounds like the team has its hands full with more than a simple robotics event that takes place once a year. This seems like their motivation comes from an urge to inspire others to get into engineering, and provide opportunities to young people in relation to skill-building and value to the job market. It certainly reminds of the Aerial Sports League's efforts or what the folks at Goodwood Festival of Speed were doing this summer.

If you're worried about tuning at the right time, don't worry about missing any particular live events. Twitch understands that we're all spread out over various time zones, and offers the ability to watch replays of previous events. Currently, for example, "Finals Day 1" is streamingtime to catch up.

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DJI to Stream the RoboMaster 2017 Robotics Competition Exclusively on Twitch - The Drive

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Person to Person Is an Indie Comedy for Music Nerds Like You – Pitchfork

Posted: at 6:19 pm

Person to Person is one long string of great scenes, but theres this beautifully horrendous moment that captures the farcical strain of comedy running through the new indie ensemble with a music tinge. It involves Michael Cera and Abbi Jacobson (of Broad City fame) sitting in a car, chanting SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! along with a fictional metal song called Suck on Greed. I like to bang my head a little in the morning before coming into work, metalhead investigative reporter Phil (Cera) tells trainee Claire (Jacobson), an introvert who prefers Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Claires face, as shes subjected to Phils morning metal routine, reads fear and crippling anxiety; certainly its not helped by the fact that shes assigned a murder case on her first day. Later, Phil attempts to get Claire out of her shell by inspiration-quoting a line from his own metal band (fear is the rape of the mind); you can tell its completely unhelpful.

This memorable dynamic captures just one part of Person to Person, the second feature from writer and director Dustin Guy Defa. The film loosely weaves its three main stories of random New Yorkers without striving for some forced connection. Its casta mix of indie veterans and newcomerskeeps the acting naturalistic, while the low-key, talky sense of humor (reminiscent of early Woody Allen or Richard Linklater) makes something as dark as a murder case come off as just another quirk of the Big Apple.

Even as Phil and Claire team up to track down their possible suspect, the victims widow (Michaela Watkins), cynicism isnt the occupying force of Person to Person. In fact, its quite the opposite. Person to Person is a warm movie: autumnal colors fill the screen while the textured 16mm film it was shot on gives its New York that nostalgic glow. This comes from the lens of cinematographer Ashley Connor, whose rsum includes Josephine Decker films and a long list of memorable music videos familiar to Pitchfork readers (Jenny Lewis Just One of the Guys, Mitskis Your Best American Girl, and Angel Olsens Shut Up Kiss Me, to name just a few).

When Connors lens isnt fixed upon Phil, Claire, the suspect, and the watchmaker who may hold the clues (Philip Baker Hall), it wanders over to Wendy and Melanie, two high school girls skipping school. Continuing to prove her acting chops, Rookie wunderkind Tavi Gevinson plays a sarcastic teen who spends her screen time grumbling to her best friend (Olivia Luccardi), who in turn invites her boyfriend along so they can make out. Ambushed with a double date, Gevinson is a delight to watch as she navigates that space between angst and curiosity.

But the films most touching vignette is of two roommates, Bene and Ray, the latter (George Sample III) fleeing from a much-deserved beating after uploading naked photos of his ex-girlfriend online. Portraying a music fanatic of the same first name, breakout star Bene Coopersmith is the far more lovable half of the duoif not the best part of Person to Person overall, then at least the films heart. Bene spends his day chasing down a rare Charlie Parker LP (The Bird Blows the Blues) and asking strangers if they think he can pull off his new floral shirt. During his scenes, the films soundtrackfull of obscure R&B and funk jams like Shirley Ann Lees Time, the Volumes Im Gonna Miss You, and Greenflows I Gotchacomes alive. As Bene goes after the record seller who ultimately scams him, the title of Person to Personabout the serendipitous, sometimes inconvenient connections strangers can make in the big cityreally comes into focus.

Despite appearances and interests, Bene isnt some hardened middle-aged man constantly griping about the good old days. In fact, its his unabashed earnestness that ends Person to Person on a touching note. After his record-chasing mishap, Bene delivers a speech far too sincere and real to knock down: Me, Ive got music in my heart. Ive got love for it, I seek it out. I find records, I collect them, I sell them to people who have that same love inside. Its a tender spot, its vulnerable. Its a spot that you think nobody is gonna take advantage of. Then you go around and you let that love be known. You share it, you share it with people and you trust that they wont violate you. Person to Person is the kind of movie that asks its viewers to open up that tender spot inside. Once you do, itll completely charm you.

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Catching the Tube: How Zimpli Kids rose to fame through social media – Toy News

Posted: at 6:19 pm

When Zimpli Kids started its Gelli Baff and Slime Baff YouTube campaign back in October 2015, little did we know that the 50 million views gained in the first month would turn into 2.5 billion just 20 months later.

We all know that the exposure a company can receive from a social media campaign is huge.

The reach of the digital medium is expansive.

YouTube, for instance, has over 1.3bn users worldwide, with over five billion videos watched each day. It makes YouTube the perfect platform to reach a huge proportion of your market, and it can do so within hours.

When Zimpli Kids started its Gelli Baff and Slime Baff YouTube campaign back in October 2015, little did we know that the 50 million views gained in the first month would turn into 2.5 billion just 20 months later.

This June alone has brought in 200 million new views from independent reviewers worldwide.

In fact, social marketing has played a major role in getting Zimpli Kids to the fantastic position we are in today particularly on YouTube.

Every day companies come face-to-face with more evidence of the change in how marketing should be done; moving away from the more traditional methods such as radio, TV and print and putting more focus into digital marketing, such as YouTube, social media and online promotions.

Social media is now far more than just updating your followers on what youre up to, or uploading a new video. Its an interactive marketing tool. It gives you insight on what is happening in real time whats trending on Twitter? Whats the next big thing on YouTube? This allows companies to take advantage of the trends to tailor their marketing approach.

The exposure that Zimpli Kids has received from our YouTube campaign is mind blowing, with 2.5bn views from independent reviewers worldwide, and there is no sign of it slowing down. YouTube has allowed us to build brand awareness worldwide, with YouTubers from the UK, US, Australia, Europe and Asia sharing products on their channels, creating demand for our products throughout the world.

The exciting thing is, YouTube and social media marketing is evolving all the time and more exciting developments are surely on the horizon.

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Teenage Clicks – Slate Magazine

Posted: at 6:19 pm

Facebook subsidiary Instagram has courted Snapchat fans with its own Stories feature.

Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Rohappy/Thinkstock and Thinkstock.

Facebook was supposed to be washed up by now. Four years ago, reports of a decline in usage by teens spurred a wave of predictions that it was headed the way of Myspace. Teens fickle taste was presumed to imply that no social network could keep its throne for very long.

Yet here we are in 2017, and Facebooks grip on social media is stronger than ever. The company reported last week that Facebook itself is used by an astonishing 2 billion people each month. Thats close to twice as many active users as it had in 2013, when the doomsaying began.

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Perhaps more importantly for the companys long-term future, two of its subsidiariesInstagram and WhatsAppare still growing at impressive rates in their own right. And much of that growth is coming from the same young demographic that was once seen as a threat to Facebooks dominance. A recent study named Instagram the most popular app among U.S. teens age 1317.

At the same time, the types of upstart rivals that once seemed destined to overtake Facebook are floundering. Twitter went public in 2013, a few months after the Facebook isnt cool anymore narrative took hold. But its growth since then has essentially flatlined. As recently as nine months ago, industry watchers were touting Snapchat and its new augmented-reality Spectacles as a potential usurper of Facebooks crown. Then Snap went public, and the hype balloon popped almost immediately. Now Twitter and Snap are the ones enduring gloomy warnings about their future obsolescence.

How did Facebook do it? How has it managed not only to stay on top of an industry that was thought to be inherently topsy-turvy, but to continually widen its lead? The answer is a simple yet devastatingly effective strategy aimed at neutralizing upstarts before its too late: If you cant beat them, buy them. And if you cant buy them, copy them.

Facebook embarked on this strategy even before most industry watchers thought it was in any danger. In 2012, it acquired Instagram, the minimalistic photo-sharing app popular mainly with young people, for what seemed at the time to be an astronomical price: $1 billion. This despite Instagram having just a handful of employees, zero revenue, and no obvious path to profitability. The startup had been valued at an estimated $500 million just a few weeks earlier.

The move prompted a flurry of rage-quits from Instagram users who had viewed the service as a refuge from the increasingly corporate, adult-dominated social network. Some commentators praised it as farsighted; others criticized it as reckless. I did some of each, arguing that the move made sense on its own terms but signaled a broader strategy that might prove unsustainable. I concluded:

Facebooks strategy, it turned out, was more nuanced than I gave it credit for. The supply of potentially revolutionary startups may indeed be endlessYik Yak, Ello, Meerkat, and Peach are just a few of those that have gained attention as would-be Facebook killers over the years, only to flop soon after. Yet the company has proved to be as selective in its choice of targets as it is aggressive in pursuing them.

If you cant beat them, buy them. And if you cant buy them, copy them.

In some cases, it has simply ignored would-be rivals, confident in the power of its network to fend off a challenge from a direct competitor. This is especially true in the case of the anti-Facebookssocial networks whose core features mimic Facebooks own, such as Google Plus, Diaspora, Ello, Peach, and the many reincarnations of Myspace.

Facebook tends to pay much closer attention when a startup attracts large numbers of youngsters by offering a social experience substantially different from its own. Instagram may have only had 30 million users in 2012, but they werent just usersthey were addicts. They loved the simplicity of uploading and sharing photos on their phone, a functionality that Facebook itself had failed to master. (It was around that time that the company realized that it would be doomed if it couldnt make the leap from users desktops to their smartphones; Facebooks subsequent shift to mobile is one of the great business success stories of the era.)

In recent years, a select handful of other social media platforms have worried Facebook enough to prompt it to significant action. They include YouTube, Vine, Periscope, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. Each one brought a fresh element to online communication that was lacking from Facebook at the time: original video, looping videos, personal streaming video, group messaging, self-destructing messages, curated personal stories. The ones Facebook couldnt buyGoogles YouTube, Twitters Vine and Periscopeit blatantly copied instead, either within Facebook or one of its subsidiary apps, such as Instagram or Messenger. WhatsApp, with its loyal network of 430 million users around the world, might have seemed too big to buy. But Facebook wasnt satisfied with its efforts to copy it via Messenger, so it went ahead and paid an enormous premium$19 billionto acquire it anyway. Three years later, WhatsApp has more than doubled in size, and it has helped to make Facebook the leader in messaginga popular and still-growing category among teens.

Of all the would-be Facebook rivals, none more perfectly embodies everything that keeps Mark Zuckerberg up at night than Snapchat. Its users are overwhelmingly young; its growth has been meteoric; it is cool and insouciant and confusing to adults in a way Facebook may have once been, but certainly never will be again. On top of that, it has proved wildly innovative, pioneering a series of products that have changed how people interact.

In Snapchats case, Facebook tried first to buy it for $3 billionagain, far more than most observers thought it was worth. But Snapchats Evan Spiegel wouldnt sell, much the same way Zuckerberg repeatedly declined seemingly generous overtures from the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft on his way to surpassing them both. So Facebook resorted to Plan B, relentlessly copying Snapchats successful features. Here, too, it failed repeatedlyremember Poke? Or Slingshot? But it never stopped trying.

For all its efforts, the main Facebook app has yet to successfully copy a major Snapchat feature. Something about either the teams approach, the Facebook brand, or the structure of its network (in which kids are inextricably linked to their parents and other authority figures) has made it helpless to recapture the interest of Snapchats young users. This was exactly the sort of scenario those doomsayers had in mind back in 2013. Its hard to say exactly how much share of teens attention Facebook has lost over the past five years, since the company doesnt break out usage metrics by age group. But in a 2016 Business Insider survey on teens favorite apps, the big blue one didnt even make the list.

Heres the twist: Core Facebook hasnt been able to fend off Snapchat, but its subsidiaries have. In the space of nine months, Facebook copied Snapchats Stories feature on no less than four of its platforms: Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook. The first twoInstagram Stories and WhatsApp Statushave already eclipsed Snapchats original in active users. This is not just a case of Facebooks oldsters discovering the form anew: Reports suggest that Instagram Stories in particular are directly siphoning both users and stars from Snapchat. And now Snap is the one facing pressure from investors to show that it can survive the onslaught from Facebook.

In retrospect, the Facebook doomsayers underestimated both the company and the severity of its coolness problem.

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Which apps are pursuing the all-important 56-year-old white guy demographic? More...

Historically, big mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector have often been disastrous (think HP/Compaq, AOL/Time Warner, and pretty much any startup Yahoo ever acquired). Facebook managed to buck this trend by seeking not synergies or cost savings, but young and fast-growing user bases. And it was willing to strategically overpay to get the ones it targeted. Meanwhile, it proved adept at mimicking the best features of those apps it wasnt able to acquire.

At the same time, it turned out being hip wasnt actually the key to dominating social media. In a recent survey of millennials, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all ranked relatively low in coolness compared with other tech brands, including Snapchat. But Zuckerberg has always cared less about being cool than about being massive, and he has discovered that the latter doesnt necessarily depend on the former.

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Shonin Streamcam, the Bodycam for Civilians, Launches on Kickstarter – PR Web (press release)

Posted: at 6:19 pm

Capture your side of the story with Shonin Streamcam - The Wearable Security Camera

Toronto, Canada (PRWEB) August 01, 2017

Shonin Inc, the technology company that empowers people to easily and securely record public interactions, today announces the launch of its flagship product, the Shonin Streamcam. With hate crimes and street harassment on the rise, this new body-worn camera is designed to help anyone document a potentially harmful or uncomfortable interaction with video proof. Everything about the Shonin Streamcam from its iconic design to its ability to automatically upload to the cloud while recording was carefully crafted to help people reliably document their experiences when they need to the most. Starting today, anyone can back Shonin Streamcam on Kickstarter at:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shonin/shonin

Were proud of what we have built, and look forward to making the Shonin Streamcam available for anyone who wants to feel safer as they go about their day, says Sameer Hasan, CEO & Founder, Shonin Inc. Much abuse and injustice still goes unaddressed, and in many cases perpetrators believe they can get away with it because its their word against ours, unless we have video proof. Shonin helps people secure video proof in situations where using their smartphones is not practical.

Born out of the desire to put an unbiased witness on your side, Shonin Streamcam is an easily wearable, rugged and waterproof camera. The Shonin Streamcam device is supported by feature-rich, intuitive software on mobile and in the cloud.

Record Directly to the Cloud in One Tap Through either a direct cellular connection with a SIM card, or while tethered to your smartphones wi-fi hotspot, Shonin Streamcam uploads video immediately to a secure cloud location or broadcasts to live video services like Facebook Live. All without even taking your phone out of your pocket.

Fully Featured Recording video with the Shonin Streamcam is made easy. Designed specifically with urgency and speed in mind, the device sports a large button on the front face of the device. A simple press of the button starts recording and streaming with no precision required. Shonin Streamcam captures your side of the story in crisp, wide-angle video. Video resolution is 1080p to local SD card and 720p when streaming or uploading to the cloud. Streamcam boasts IP67 waterproofing, and before launch, will undergo rigorous impact testing to ensure it can be worn worry-free in even the roughest scenarios.

Great Hardware Goes Best with Great Software The Shonin app lets you instantly view your videos as soon as they have finished recording. Capture video, view video, simple as that. The Shonin app allows you to easily make edits without losing the original raw footage, which is always securely stored until you choose to delete it. With a couple of taps, you can instantly share videos with your friends or on social media. The Shonin app also lets you customize just about everything about the video capture or device behavior, with settings that let you turn off the recording light, adjust the resolution, enable or disable cloud upload, and more. Once selected, settings take effect immediately.

Iconic Design Just like a home security camera, Shonin Streamcams colors, visibility and iconic design can act as a possible deterrent to aggressors.

Specifications

Video - 720p to cloud, up to 1080p to disk

Connectivity - Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and LTE cellular (in Cellular model) Supported bands FDD-LTE: B1/ B2 / B3 / B4/ B5/ B7/ B8/ B12 / B20 TDD-LTE: B38/ B40 /B41 3G WCDMA: B1 / B2 / B4 / B5 /B8

GPS enabled Works with most GSM carriers

Audio - Mic for audio capture, speaker for audio feedback

Waterproofing - IP67 Waterproof

Battery Life - Up to 2 hours of recording time, up to 4 hours with additional battery pack.

Dimensions - 56mm x 56mm x 13mm

StorageExpandable with Micro SD Card 8GB card included

Free Devices for Qualifying Organizations Shonin will offer a limited number of free, as well as heavily discounted, devices to qualifying non-profit organizations.

We want to help non-profits that are on the front lines, driving real societal change, said Sameer Hasan. The work these organizations do is inspiring, and we would love to see their members equipped with the right tools. By providing them with free devices and associated services, we can do our part to help make those necessary changes a reality.

Representatives from non-profit organizations are asked to get in touch with Shonin by emailing ngo(at)shonin(dot)io.

Shonin Streamcam will be available in multiple colors starting at $149 USD ($199 CAD) exclusively on Kickstarter, with worldwide shipping to backers starting in February 2018. Shonin Streamcam will retail starting at $199 USD ($249 CAD) once available to the general public target date March 2018.

About Shonin Shonin creates technology that enables citizens to securely collect, edit and share video proof. Formed in 2016, our mission is to achieve a safer, fairer and more just world through technology, starting with our first product, Shonin Streamcam, the cloud-connected wearable security camera.

Media Contact Sameer Hasan | Shonin Inc. | media(at)shonin(dot)io

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How Winter Olympians prep in summertime: wheels, wet suits, and virtual reality – Christian Science Monitor

Posted: at 6:19 pm

August 1, 2017 Theres not a snowflake in the sky, but Winter Olympic hopefuls are already flying off ski jumps in Utah, firing up their luge sleds in Lake Placid, N.Y., and cross-country skiing past Vermont cow pastures.

With everything from wet suits to wheels to virtual-reality tools, theyre simulating the challenges theyll face at the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, next February. The perseverance and perfection highlighted on TV for those short few weeks are being honed now, thanks in part to the innovative methods devised by coaches, trainers, and equipment designers.

Keaton McCargo uses the Ski Simulator at the Center of Excellence in Park City, Utah. The simulator can be used in tandem with virtual reality technology that simulates the sensory environment of an alpine ski run.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard

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In some ways the lack of natural snow or ice actually makes for safer, more efficient training. Whereas alpine skiers would spend much of their on-snow training sessions riding the chairlift, for example, a skiing simulator allows them to cut straight to the actual training run. Essentially a lateral treadmill, it mimics the forces skiers contend with while hurtling down mountains and can be used in tandem with virtual-reality technology that replicates the sensory environment of a ski race. A huge bonus: theres no danger of crashing.

What were trying to do is use virtual reality to expand the time that the athletes can spend in their field of play, says Luke Bodensteiner, executive vice president, athletics at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) in Park City, Utah.

But he doesnt want to talk too much about that. Its one of the teams secret weapons heading into Pyeongchang.

Bodensteiner works out of the USSA Center of Excellence, which supports 195 national team athletes with state-of-the-art facilities (including napping areas) and a staff that includes conditioning coaches, dietitians, and physical therapists.

Chris Lillis is one of those athletes, and a rising star on the United States freestyle ski team. Last year he became the youngest male to win a World Cup in aerials skiing at age 17.

Freestyle skier Chris Lillis stands atop a jump at the Utah Olympic Park at the Tri-Nation Aerials Showdown on Sept. 11, 2016. Lillis trains at the facility during the summer and fall, and says that the softer landing afforded by the pool (below) enables him to fit in twice as many training jumps as on snow.

Tyler Tate/T Squared Action Sports

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Caption

Five days a week, he averages 25 to 30 jumps off the ramps at the Olympic Park, twisting in the air before landing in a pool. He wears ski boots and skis, and a wet suit in the summer switching to a dry suit in the fall as the temperatures drop, sometimes with sweatpants underneath.

The easier landing means he can do twice as many jumps as he would on snow. But theres a catch.

When we jump on snow the landing we jump on is between 28 and 32 degrees of pitch downwards, so if you land completely flat on water, you would land [wrong] on the snow, he explains, so they have to adjust their technique. You want to land forward to simulate snow.

Abby Ringquist also flies off jumps in Utah sans wet suit. A ski jumper, she cruises down porcelain tracks, springs into position, and floats through the air to land on moistened plastic. When she takes off, her hips must make an arcing motion similar to shooting a basketball your fist is kind of like your hips in ski jumping, explains Ringquist.

To perfect that motion, she also does imitations. Crouching down, she rides a small platform down a rollerboard, and then springs onto a pile of mats. Thats easier than when youre going 60 m.p.h. off a jump, explains Ringquist, who just placed second at US Nationals.

In between training, Lillis and Ringquist chip away at college and work multiple jobs. He works for a public-speaking company and a golf course; she coaches, works at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and waits tables at a breakfast restaurant.

None of my travel or equipment or lodging are covered unless its a World Cup weekend. So for me to travel this summer and next winter, its about $20,000, says Ringquist, who lives on a mini-ranch with her husband and their three dogs, two goats, and nine chickens. My plates overflowing, but I do the best I can.

Perhaps one of the hardest elements to replicate in summertime is the distractions of competition day. Take biathlon, for example, which combines cross-country skiing with shooting. As biathletes come into the shooting range, they stream into narrow lanes, pull their guns off their backs, load their ammo, and take aim at their five targets often with competitors right at their elbows.

Youll hear what theyre doing, youll see them out of the corner of your eye, says Susan Dunklee, whose silver at this years World Championships made her the first American woman to win an individual medal at Worlds. You always have to have a plan for when you do get distracted what are you going to do to refocus?

It can be something as simple as focusing on your trigger squeeze, which cant be too quick or too hard, or it will throw the bullet off course. So she practices that in the summertime just her finger and her rifle, getting to know that exact place where the trigger will engage, like the clutch of a car.

And thats just part of it. She also runs, hikes, bikes, and rollerskis through Vermont's rolling hills. Altogether, its up to four hours of training in the morning, and 1.5 hours in the afternoon six days a week. She goes through 17,000 rounds of ammunition a year.

As part of his summer training ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics, Tucker West (l.) practices his luge starts at a refrigerated facility in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Courtesy USA Luge

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Caption

Dunklee got her start in biathlon at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, where elite athletes can live and eat for free.

Tucker West was recruited there after USA Luge heard about the luge track his dad had built in their backyard in Connecticut, which West would ride down on a plastic sled.

Those who deride luge as not a sport clearly havent heard about Wests workout regimen.

After 30 to 60 minutes of jogging and stretching, he shows up by 9 a.m.at a refrigerated facility with a short luge starting ramp equipped with starting gates and precision timing. He pulls six to 12 starts, then its off to the gym for an hour-long plyometric workout.

He eats lunch in 10 minutes no dessert and then one to three hours of lifting. Power cleans, power snatch, power jerks. And hanging by his fingers. All for those first few seconds when hell pull himself off the start and then use his hands to paddle down the icy track.

Sometimes they put wheels on their sleds and go down the streets of Lake Placid or even the actual luge tracks but thats too risky for an Olympic year. After stretching, massage, and other recovery methods, he eats dinner at 5 p.m. and then chips away at online college classes.

In bed by 10:30 to 11, he says. And then repeat.

With 192 days to go until the Pyeongchang Olympics opening ceremony, athletes from Lake Placid to Latvia have a lot of training ahead of them before the global spotlight is flicked on. Then, the world will see the fruits of their labors and maybe another little boy and his dad will be inspired to build something in their backyard, with a distant Olympics in mind.

Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed reporting.

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Second Life creator launches beta of its virtual reality simulation – TechCrunch

Posted: at 6:19 pm

Your third life is here (in beta).

The SF-based Linden Lab is at last launching an open creator beta of its VR-ready universe simulation, Sansar.The world creation and exploration title is expansive in its ambitions and still has a long way to go. After a lengthy creator preview in which early access was given to a couple thousand creators, there are 1,700 worlds to explore (some better than others, I imagine).

While last weeks surprise shutdown announcement for AltspaceVR, a social VR company that raised nearly $15 million, is still fresh on the minds, Linden Lab has the flexibility of profitability to help it guide its long-term vision for Sansar.

The company behind Second Life, a game which seemingly lost its wider cultural relevance more than a decade ago, has managed to make a ton of money as the titles most devoted lifers have continued to shovel cash into the online simulation. Despite the nascent nature of the VR market, the company has shifted its focus to building Sansar, though Second Life will continue on as a unique, separate entity.

Linden Lab has the luxury of monetizing world creation from the very beginning. In Second Life, users pay a pretty hefty amount in order to rent land while things beyond that stay relatively cheap otherwise. For Sansar, the land you build on is free (for your first few worlds); the costs start stacking up when you visit the asset store to populate those worlds with objects. If youre a budding 3D designer with time to spare, you can create a world customized to your liking on your own, but for those looking to drop a stock object like, say, a chair in their virtual home, they can drop some in-game coin on the product.

The company isnt looking to be very subtle with its ambitions of creating a wide network of explorable worlds that will grow to rival reality. Over my last several meetings, the company has not shied away from discussions of metaverses and simulations. In our latest meeting, a copy of Ready Player One sat unacknowledged on the table in the conference room, broadcasting its ambitions further without saying too much.

Whats launching today is very much a beta product of what Sansar will grow to become, but the experience is oddly so polished in some areas while sorely lacking in others. As-is, Sansar allows virtual reality users a wide swath of user-created worlds to explore and the potential to build their own whats missing are the tools to make exploring these arenas more interactive.

Unlike most VR developers, Linden Lab opted not to rely on an existing game engine like Unity or Unreal but instead built their own custom engine for Sansar thats wholly separate from what they built for Second Life. The limitations are pretty apparent early on, and while it is possible to build beautiful static worlds in Sansar, as an explorer youre ultimately left with a sort of three-dimensional board game to traverse thats generally only made dynamic by the multiplayer aspect. You can toss things like a basketball in some experiences, but the physics and controls themselves have a long ways to go.

Today, Sansar goes live on the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, as well as 2D desktop experience on PCs.

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New Technology Brings Skeletal Tracking to Multi-Player Virtual Reality Experiences – Variety

Posted: at 6:19 pm

Virtual reality in movie theaters and malls is about to get a whole lot more realistic, thanks to new tracking technology introduced by OptiTrack this week. The company, which is already supplying tracking solutions to The Void and other location-based VR startups, introduced a new whole-body VR tracking solution at SigGraph in Los Angeles Monday that could be one more step towards making loction-based virtual reality mainstream.

The new solution is based on a kind of puck that players in VR centers and arcades can attach to their hands and feet. Combined with any data gathered from tracking their VR headsets and any additional equipment, these pucks will help to enable whole-body tracking in multiplayer virtual reality worlds.

OptiTrack started selling its 3D tracking solutions into multiple industries about a decade ago. The companys customers include visual effects companies, which use OptiTracks technology to add some human touch to animated characters by putting real-life actors and athletes into motion capture suits, among other things.

A few years ago, OptiTracks executives realized that they could sell the same technology to VR companies as well, in part because all of the hardware vendors in the emerging VR world were specializing on non-commercial applications. Oculus and Vive have both very good trackers but they are limited to room-scale, said OptiTrack Chief Strategy Officer Brian Niles during a recent interview with Variety.

VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive offer positional tracking to accurately reproduce movements in a 3D space, but both are currently restricted to a areas measuring between 100 and 150 square-feet big enough for a living room, but not for a VR center. Thats why OptiTrack repurposed some of its technology to work in significantly larger spaces, measuring 10,000 square feet and beyond.

In addition to bigger areas, OptiTracks tech also allows VR center operators to track a much wider range of props to make sure that flashlights, guns and other objects you might pick up in a VR experience are accurately represented in the virtual world. And now, the company is extending this kind of tracking to the players themselves, allowing multi-player experiences to accurately relay the movements of all players in VR. This is the first skeletal tracking of these players, said Niles.

OptiTrack also introduced self-calibrating tracking systems at SigGraph Monday, which could further simplify the operation of VR arcades. Motion tracking, whether used in the context of VR or for visual effects, has long required frequent calibration of the cameras used. Operators typically re-calibrate their sets every single day to account for small structural movements, which requires employees to walk through the space and wave a special wand to make sure that all cameras still track everything accurately.

Now, OptiTracks systems can do this kind of calibration by themselves, while in use. This may sound like a small advancement, but it could be a big deal in a nascent industry that is trying bring VR to thousands of malls and movie theaters without having to hire expensive specialists for every single location. High school students will be able to run this, said Niles.

Correction 12:01pm: A previous version of this story misstated the size of spaces OtiTracks solution is capable of tracking.

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This Is the Fastest-Growing Skill Demanded of Online Freelancers – Fortune

Posted: at 6:19 pm

As the world's tech giants invest heavily in virtual reality, the relatively few workers who specialize in the nascent field are seeing big benefits.

Demand for online freelancers with VR expertise grew far faster than for people with any other skill last quarter. Billings on VR projects grew more than 30-fold from the same period a year earlier, according to U.S. data provided by Upwork Inc.'s website that connects freelancers with employers.

VR has so far struggled to break into the mainstream, with the technology largely confined to high-end video gaming. Facebook Inc., which bought VR headset maker Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion, has already been lowering prices for the Oculus headset and is working on a more consumer-friendly version to be sold next year. Other companies that make VR goggles include Samsung Electronics Co., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Sony Corp.

Overall, tech-related skills accounted for nearly two-thirds of Upworks list of the 20 fastest-growing skills. Specialties related to artificial intelligence, such as natural language processing, neural networks and image processing, dominated the top of the list. People who specialize in econometrics, a subspecialty of economics that involves building mathematical models to explain and predict the real world, also saw a big spike in demand for their work.

To be sure, the market for many of these kinds of workers is still small, growing from a pool that was basically nonexistent just a year ago. For example, there are just over 2,500 freelancers on Upworks site now who list VR as one of their skills, compared with 106 individuals at this point last year.

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